Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria takes a close look at Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy, noting Obama’s emphasis on realism, in sharp contrast to John McCain and George W. Bush, who have embraced the wide-eyed idealism of the neoconservatives.

The rap on Barack Obama, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been that he is a softheaded idealist who thinks that he can charm America’s enemies. John McCain and his campaign, conservative columnists and right-wing bloggers all paint a picture of a liberal dreamer who wishes away the world’s dangers. Even President Bush stepped into the fray earlier this year to condemn the Illinois senator’s willingness to meet with tyrants as naive. Some commentators have acted as if Obama, touring the Middle East and Europe this week on his first trip abroad since effectively wrapping up the nomination, is in for a rude awakening.

These critiques, however, are off the mark. Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.

Just as with his other policies, Obama takes a much more nuanced approach to the world, recognizing that the world is a complex place. In contrast, McCain seems to embrace W’s simplistic “good vs. evil” approach to most situation.

Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn’t divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.

Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush’s freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people’s economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—”dignity.” He rejects Bush’s obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people’s aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. “Once these aspirations are met,” he told The New York Times’s James Traub, “it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want.” This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.

John Weaver calls Mccain’s new attack ads “childish.”

This is getting ridiculous. McCain’s campaign’s ineptitude is rivaled only by McCain himself.

I’m not a fan of George W. Bush or Michael Gerson (one of his former aides who’s now a columnist), but Gerson rightly points out that Bush deserves credit for devoting resources for fighting AIDS, Malaria and other diseases in Africa. Bush has fought hard and worked with Democrats to dramatically increase spending in this area and the efforts are saving lives.

John McCain’s campaign is so bad it’s starting to become embarassing. He’s completely embraced Rove-style politics, but he’s so incompetent that he gets caught telling outright lies as he’s tries to destroy Obama’s reputation.

The Washington Post details how McCain’s charge that Obama wanted to bring the press along on his scheduled hospital visit in Germany is completely false. This is so lame, and it comes from a man who pledged to run an “honorable” campaign.

I always had respect for McCain, but it’s amazing how low he will go to win. That respect is gone.

He’s probably trying to bait Obama to meet him for a fight in the gutter, but I suspect Obama will not respond in kind. Obama has plenty of ammunition with McCain’s policy positions, particularly recent ones where he has embraced George Bush’s policies. He can also focus on how McCain contradicts himself almost on a daily basis. He can leave the cheap shots to supporters who will be more than happy to point out where John McCain’s actions in life don’t live up to the “honorable” standard he claims to set for himself.

The AP reports on a $40 million prison compound built in Iraq with American taxpayer money that is basically useless.

In the flatlands north of Baghdad sits a prison with no prisoners. It holds something else: a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million and stretching back to the American overseers who replaced Saddam Hussein.

“It’s a bit of a monument in the desert right now because it’s not going to be used as a prison,” said Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office plans to release a report Monday detailing the litany of problems at the vacant detention center in Khan Bani Saad.

The pages also add another narrative to the wider probes into the billions lost so far on scrubbed or substandard projects in Iraq and one of the main contractors accused of failing to deliver, the Parsons construction group of Pasadena, Calif.

“This is $40 million invested in a project with very little return,” Bowen told The Associated Press in Washington. “A couple of buildings are useful. Other than that, it’s a failure.”

In the pecking order of corruption in Iraq, the dead-end prison project at Khan Bani Saad is nowhere near the biggest or most tangled.

Bowen estimated up to 20 percent “waste” — or more than $4 billion — from the $21 billion spent so far in the U.S.-bankrolled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. It’s just one piece of a recovery effort that swelled beyond $112 billion in U.S., Iraqi and international contributions.

Conservatives get furious if some Americans game the system and take advantage of social programs. Where’s the outrage for wasting up to $4 billion on useless projects in Iraq?

Interesting news from the Iraqis:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

It is the first time he has backed the withdrawal timetable put forward by Obama, who is visiting Afghanistan and us set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Obama has called for a shift away from a “single-minded” focus on Iraq and wants to pull out troops within 16 months, instead adding U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan.

Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.

“Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems.”

From a purely political point of view, this helps Obama by giving legitimacy to his plans. Bush and McCain have always said that we would leave if the Iraqis asked them to stay.

It also isn’t a surprise. Malaki has been hinting at this for years, and he’s repeated it often in the last month. The Bush administration tried to negotiate long-term bases, but it’s becoming clearer that the Iraqis have different ideas.

As for what’s best for Iraq, nobody knows. Malaki is certainly trying to consolidate power, and by calling for a withdrawel be blunts some of the criticism coming from Sadr.

It’s certainly a positive development from the American point of view. We cannot maintain our presence there. It’s killing our economy, and it’s hurting the efforts in Afghanistan.

The McCain team has sent out info reminding the press that Evan Bayh was an honorary co-chair of the neocon pro-war Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. He co-chaired the group along with John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

Bayh’s Iraq vote was always going to be a negative, but this takes things a step further. The important thing is that he subsequently removed himself from the group and he now says he would not have supported the Iraq War knowing what he knows now.

I don’t think this kills his chances. He brings so much to the table from an experience and electoral point of view. Also, they can emphasize that many supporters of the war have acknowledged they made a mistake, while McCain still thinks it was the right thing to do.

It’s interesting that the McCain team put out this information now. They must be terrified by the prospect of an Obama/Bayh ticket. If Bayh helps Obama win Indiana, it’s hard to see how McCain has a chance.

Great stuff.

McCain has been saying since last year that he was against sending more US troops to Afghanistan, while Barack Obama was arguing we needed more troops there. His campaign was repeating that policy as recently as last week, but now he’s changed his position and is calling for more troops, mimicking the Obama policy. He even moved up his foreign policy speech by two days in an effort to trump Obama’s speech today.

The press is starting to pick up on this, and it will reinforce Obama’s point that Afghanistan and Al Qaeda need to be the focus of our counter-terrorism efforts.

Too funny.

This is a very logical and practical approach.

Sad news. Tony Snow was a class act.

Don’t worry about this. McCain’s top advisor thinks our economic problems are just in our head.

Several weeks ago, Newsweek had Obama up by 15 points. Compared to other polls, it seemed way off based. As expected, the next Newsweek poll shows a much tighter race at 3 points, which is more consistent with other national polls. Of couse, Newsweek wonders what happened over the last several weeks. This fits into their narrative that Obama’s appeal might be fading.

They might want to take a look at the methodology of their poll. The weighting between Democrats and Republicans over the two polls were very different, along with weighting for other democgraphic factors. Naturally, if you include more Republicans in the second poll, you will show a much different margin.

This is a tough year to conduct polls, as the breakdown between Democrats and Republicans is very hard to predict. That breakdown has a huge impact on polling results.

What’s strange is that Newsweek would release polls with very different weightings and then draw conclusions from the poll that don’t take these weightings into account. This is another example where blogs do a much better job of reporting facts than the mainstream media.

This is a great move, and as Jacob Heilbrunn explains, it’s a blow to McCain. Hagel is a veteran as well and aa Republican Senator who opposes the Bush administration policy in Iraq.

I’m curious to see who else joins Obama as it might signal potential VP picks. Biden seems like an obvious choice for the trip regardless of whether Obama is seriously considering him for the trip, but if Evan Bayh joins them, it increases the odds that he’s the pick.

Former Senator Phil Gramm is hilarious. He’s one of the true believers in the concept of deregulation, while he seems completely oblivious to the negative effects of many of our deregulation efforts, probably because the was behind many of them.

He’s now becoming famous for his claim that “we’re becoming a nation of whiners.” Now, we all know plenty of whiners, but this isn’t the best way to describe Americans when you’re an advisor to a presidential candidate. He’s also dead wrong about our economic situation. Things aren’t peachy. The economy has serious structural problems, and our major banks are in big trouble and are getting bailed out by Middle Eastern investors, the same people we’re making rich with our idiotic energy policies. In the meantime, ordinary Americans are getting squeezed. Foreclosures are going through the roof, and gas prices are slowing the economy.

Phil Gramm is a PR nightmare for McCain, but more importantly he is McCain’s cheif economic advisor. The Gramm/McCain policies would be a disaster for this country. So it’s poetic justice that Gramm’s stupidity and lame political skills are hurting McCain. I remeber when Gramm ran for president in 2006. He had by far the most money, but people hated him. He crashed and burned very quickly in Iowa.

McCain threw Gramm under the bus today, but he and Gramm have been friends for years and he has been a critical advisor. That connection will continue t be a problem for today.

Meanwhile, the video has surfaced of Gramm making his “whiner” statement. As Joe Sudbey points out, he’s so smug and condescending.

Evan Byah would be an excellent choice for Obama’s running mate.

The fact that the Obama campaign is willing to target Indiana tells me that Bayh might be the choice. The 11 electoral votes from Indiana would tip the election to Obama, if he won all the Kerry states and Iowa (where he has a solid lead). He wouldn’t even need Ohio or Florida. Having Bayh on the ticket could deliver the state. His midwestern roots would also help Obama in battleground states like Ohio and Wisconsin.

More importantly, Bayh bolsters the ticket in general terms. First, he’s clearly capable of being President on day one. He’s a former governor and a Senator. He also has significant foreign policy credentials, with his seats on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees. He’s a moderate with excellent credentials on taxes and economic policy. Finally, he looks like a President. He’s soft-spoken and boring at times, but he projects an image of quiet competence, which is a good balance to Obama’s electric campaign. He would help quiet the fears of those who worry Obama lacks experience. He’s not an old hand like Sam Nunn, but he’s still a heavyweight.

Obama needs a VP that reassures voters and doesn’t make mistakes. Bayh is a pro, and he did a good job as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

Bayh’s credentials, along with the help he provides with the electoral map, make him the best choice in my opinion.

Absolutely hilarious.

Traditional media outlets love to rip on bloggers, but it’s amazing just how bad the media can be at times. One of the best bloggers, Josh Marshall, points out how Jennifer Loven of the AP can’t seem to get the facts straight.